Comfortably cosmopolitan? How patterns of ‘social cohesion’ vary with crime and fear Anine Kriegler and Mark Shaw
Overview • Research context • Cosmo City context • Methodology • Results • Discussion
Research context • South African Cities Network’s reference group on urban safety • Developing city level safety indicators • Case study on social cohesion, safety and perceptions in Cosmo City • Time
Cosmo City • Mixed-income, mixed-use PPP • 5 000 RDP, 3 000 credit-linked, 3 300 bonded, 1 000 apartments + schools, parks, retail, commercial, industrial etc. • 70 000+ • Building from 2005, residential completed 2012
Cosmo City • Designed explicitly for social inclusion and cohesion for diverse income levels • Shared spatial use – multi-purpose centre • Neighbourhood design • Naming
Average annual household income 0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 Ward 100 Cosmo City Ward 97 Honeydew etc. Ward 113 Greater Diepsloot
Methodology • Interviews – City of Joburg and developers • Survey: demographics, security, local governance, social cohesion, fear, perceptions, experiences of crime (25 Qs) • Based on VOCS but mobile • 400 households, matching housing type proportions
Results: social cohesion • 85% feel part of local community • 73% feel part of whole community • 85% proud to be resident of Cosmo • 73% interact with diverse backgrounds • 87% either satisfied with or keen to interact more Strong social cohesion
Results: fear of crime • 50% always feel safe in Cosmo • 31% in VOCS • 7% feel unsafe in public space • 37% in VOCS Relatively low fear of crime
Results: crime victimisation • About 90% said household has experienced crime in the last 5 years • Rates x3+ greater than in VOCS • 6% said member of household has been murdered in last 5 years High victimisation rates – some implausibly
High social cohesion + low fear of crime + (too) high self-reported crime victimisation
Discussion • Mobile, informal format encourage telescoping? • Actually crime level perception? • Social cohesion → share crime information, blur household boundaries, raise perception of victimisation even while reducing fear
Thank you anine.kriegler@gmail.com mark.shaw@uct.ac.za
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